Hellboy volume 10: The Crooked Man and Others

As a baby Hellboy was taken – on December 23rd 1944 – from Nazi cultists by American superhero The Torch of Liberty and a squad of US Rangers. They had interrupted a satanic ritual predicted by Allied parapsychologist Professor Trevor Bruttenholm and his associates.

They were waiting at a ruined church in East Bromwich, England when an abominable infant with a huge stone right hand materialised in a fireball. Raised by Bruttenholm, the child grew into a mighty warrior fighting a never-ending secret war. The Professor trained the infernal foundling whilst forming an organisation to destroy supernatural threats – the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense.

After years of such devoted intervention, education and warm human interaction, in 1952 the neophyte hero began destroying unnatural threats and supernatural monsters as lead agent for the BPRD. “Hellboy” rapidly became its top operator… the world’s most successful paranormal investigator…

As the decades unfolded, Hellboy gleaned snatches of his origins, learning he was a supposedly corrupted creature of dark portent: born a demonic messiah, destined to destroy the world and bring back ancient powers of evil. It was a fate he despised and utterly rejected…

This creepy tenth collection re-presents the 3-issue miniseries Hellboy: the Crooked Man, one-shot Hellboy: In the Chapel of Moloch, the extremely rare Hellboy: They That Go Down to the Sea in Ships computer game premium and a short story from Free Comic Book Day 2008: Hellboy: once again relating tales set at various stages of his globe-trotting, world-saving fifty year career batting the arcane, occult and unknown…

Following an expansively effusive Introduction from cartoonist Gahan Wilson, this collation of chillers commences with Eisner Award-winning saga ‘The Crooked Man’, limned by Richard Corben, with colours and letters by regular support crew Dave Stewart and Clem Robins.

It’s preceded by an introductory commentary from author Mignola where he acknowledges the influence of and debt to pulp, comics, magazine and novel-writer Manly Wade Wellman and how he helped shaped the supernatural shocker which follows…

Roaming the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia in 1958, Hellboy encounters a plague of witches and meets a fellow victim of fate in wandering Tom Ferrell.

As they jointly seek a cure for a hexed woman they encounter an old friend of Tom’s who has been lured into the craft by the Devil. Having met the infernal fiend in his local guise as the Crooked Man, Tom reveals a dark secret of his own…

Years ago when he was a stupid kid, Ferrell was seduced by teen temptress Effie Kolb who lured him into making a pact with the Crooked One. His reward was great power – in the form of a lucky wishing bone – but the boy was so shocked by the experience that he fled the Appalachians in terror: joining the army, becoming a globe-trotter and never, ever calling upon the demonic power at his command…

And now he’s been drawn home to settle accounts…

Witches and devils are waiting for him with many cruel punishments in store but, with Hellboy beside him, Tom pushes on up the mountains to the seat of the monsters’ power. Here, a dedicated, unswerving preacher holds out on the last piece of consecrated ground in the entire district, and with his divine support the damned heroes confront all the powers of Hell and temptations of Perdition to banish the dark forces.

As always, however, there is a price to pay…

Written by Mignola and Joshua Dysart with art by Jason Shawn Alexander ‘They That Go Down to the Sea in Ships’ was created as a comic premium given away with a computer game. The scene is Newburyport, Massachusetts in 1986, where a hustling fortune teller steals – or is perhaps glamoured by – the skull Blackbeard the Pirate.

A month later Hellboy and amphibian agent Abe Sapien are called to Ocracoke Island, North Carolina where the brain-slaved conman is attempting to unite the piratical pate with its former body to resurrect the bloodiest murderer in history to his old red-handed antics…

Even Hellboy’s great strength seems unable to still the unquiet ghost, but other vengeful forces have also been awakened by the rowdy Blackbeard…

‘In the Chapel of Moloch’ is an all-Mignola affair set in 1992 wherein the weird wanderer visits an old friend in southern Portugal and is drawn into an eerie case of possession. They investigate the disappearance of a painter who has been beguiled by the works of Francisco Goya and apparently summoned to Earth the personification of a biblical devil, and discover something old and fierce and deadly on the loose…

The comics cavalcade of chills and thrills ends with a whimsical vignette by Mignola & Duncan Fegredo from Free Comic Book Day 2008: Hellboy. As the B.P.R.D. top gun spends a little downtime in England with some old – and largely deceased – pals, he has a bit of an extended fright after one of them points out ‘The Mole’ growing on the arcane agent’s hand…

This capital collection of Chthonic capers is accompanied by a gallery of covers by Mignola and Corben and supplemented by a copious ‘Hellboy Sketchbook’ assemblage with art from all stages of production and commentary from the author and artists Alexander, Fegredo & Corben before closing with an erudite and tantalising biographic appreciation of ‘Manly Wade Wellman: American Mythmaker’ by author, archivist and historian John Pelan.